


liminal spaces

by firstaudrina



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Scene, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Missing Scene, Season 1 post-finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 11:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16555313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: Alec thinks of Magnus’ mouth under his, the velvet of his lapels and the sweetness of his surprise. Alec might need to put a reminder on his calendar for today,you really did kiss him.Alternate coda for 1x13.





	liminal spaces

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an alternate take/continuation of the scene Magnus and Alec had in the hallway at the end of 1x13, "Morning Star." But with more talking! Boys getting to know each other in the early days.

They stand at either side of the hallway in their respective stances: Magnus upright with his arms crossed, hiding everything and nothing behind his confidence; Alec slouching against the wood paneling, ankles crossed casually but hands held stiffly behind him, like a soldier. Relaxed, but at attention. Both aware of how they present themselves and always in control of it. 

“Alec.” 

That gets his attention, pulling Alec out of his maudlin overthinking. “Hm?”

“You seem…” There’s a look of careful consideration on Magnus’ face. He amends, “I get the sense that this conversation isn’t over.”

Right. The conversation where Magnus reassured him about a future neither of them could predict, mistaking Alec’s tight knot of feeling for jealousy. Alec is a little jealous, but not because he gives a shit about Camille. It’s time he cares about. Time, and how it always seems to be moving too goddamn fast.

Alec had spent his entire evening chasing after the bloodsucking ex of his — well, the guy he’d just announced his intentions to in front of everyone he’s ever known. It was frustrating and time-consuming and distracting, but worst of all it made him realize that the guy he’d just declared his intentions to knew the real meaning of the word _eternal_. Magnus’ relationship drama went back not just months or years or decades, but _centuries_. Alec feels stupidly dwarfed by that even though it is just a simple fact of their lives. 

Their lives. Alec’s, and this person who makes him want to light a fuse on everything he’s ever known.

“I — My wedding was earlier today,” Alec finally says, inanely, and then slides down to sit right on the floor. Drops like his legs went out from under him with exhaustion. He’s never allowed himself to do that before. He’s hit the floor when pushed and gotten right back up again more times than he could count, but he always kept his head high and shoulders squared. Whenever he had the urge to crumble, to just give up, he thought of the almost imperceptible purse of his mother’s mouth when she was disappointed. And then he stood up straighter.

Magnus stares at him for a moment and blinks once, cartoonishly. Then he folds to the ground too, but with much more grace. “I know, Alexander. I was there.”

The reason Alec likes Magnus so much is that, right there: he just rolled with it. He took a seat and continued the conversation without missing a beat.

It isn’t just the wedding; the wedding has somehow become the least of it. It was doing what he wanted to do without caring about the consequences for once. It was breaking rules and flouting convention. It was his brother diving into the lion’s den and thinking he was doing it by choice, because they had all been raised in a way that robbed them of understanding the difference between choice and duty. It was the anxiety and stress of the last few weeks, the last few years, his entire life. It was the almost incandescent relief of pulling Magnus to him for a kiss, and then the nosedive back into reality that followed. Like Alec couldn’t have one thing without two being taken away. 

And Magnus has so much _time_. He has time for mistakes. Alec has wasted so much of his life already. 

“Alec,” Magnus says again, more softly. “I can’t see the future, and I can’t read your mind either.”

Alec rubs a hand over his face, nodding. Then he looks at Magnus, really takes him in, sitting there so calmly with one knee up, his arm resting across it like an ad for watches or cologne. Alec allows his legs to slowly straighten out to fill the space. They’re blocking the whole hall, the two of them. “You live _forever_.” 

Magnus’ eyebrows make a miniscule, curious shift. “Yes.”

“How long was your longest relationship?”

Perhaps somewhat taken aback, Magnus opens his mouth but doesn’t respond immediately. “There was a young woman… She and I probably weren’t much older than you are now. We were together until her death some forty years later.”

Alec blows out a breath. He has been lucky enough not to lose anyone, but here Magnus is, watching everyone he loves fade away and then doing it again, then again. Then again. “I’m sorry. Does it still hurt?”

Evidently, that isn’t what Magnus thought he was going to say. “Sometimes.” Wary, he adjusts his position, letting his legs rest parallel to Alec’s, crossed at the ankle. They’re touching now, barely. “Can I ask what this line of questioning is all about?”

“I don’t really know a lot about you.”

“I don’t know a lot about you, either,” Magnus points out reasonably. “It hasn’t been very long.”

Lamely, Alec says, “Yeah, but you’re — you know everything.” He clears his throat, embarrassed. “You’re perceptive. You knew things about me that I didn’t even…that I didn’t want to deal with.”

“All that proves is that I’m an excellent guesser, which is now another thing you know about me.”

Alec finds himself smiling a little. He thinks of Magnus staring him down from the other end of the aisle. “I know you’re not afraid of anything.”

“You’re a _terrible_ guesser,” he laughs. 

“Oh, come on.” Alec lets his hand fall onto Magnus’ ankle. “I’ve seen you. You just — you charge into situations, you take big risks. You put yourself on the line.”

“So do you. Does that mean you’re fearless?”

“Hm.” Alec watches him with interest. “Stupid, maybe.”

Laughing again, Magnus says, “I think I prefer bold and brave.”

“You are, for sure.”

“False modesty isn’t particularly attractive.” Magnus gives Alec a look that he feels in the pit of his stomach, tingling along the back of his neck. It’s dark and inviting, full of rich humor. “You’re a good man, Alec. I’ve known enough bad ones to tell the difference. You’ve made a misguided choice or two. You don’t always know what you’re doing. Who does?”

“You do.”

“I have more practice, that’s all.” Tenderness shades Magnus’ expression, something Alec used to misinterpret as patronizing when he didn’t want to accept it for what it was. “You need to laugh more, I will say that. But I think you’re more sensitive than you want to let on, and more gentle than anyone might expect.”

Alec wets his lips unthinkingly and flushes when it draws Magnus’ gaze. “You’re good at that.”

“See,” Magnus says. “There’s another thing you know about me.”

Alec laughs, and likes it better because he knows it’s something Magnus wants him to do. He has a list of superlatives he could give Magnus in return, though he couldn’t deliver them half as elegantly. Even thinking of saying so much so soon makes his tongue thick in his mouth, his skin hot with awkward discomfort. Magnus is unlike anyone he has ever met. He thinks differently, he challenges the way things are, and he doesn’t subscribe to any path except the one he laid out for himself. He’s resilient. He is brilliantly alive. 

He’s magical. 

“When I was a kid,” Alec starts, already rolling his eyes at himself. “Sometimes I would think about, you know, a guy. The guy.” Shadowhunters married so young that debating the perfect partner wasn’t uncommon, even when most of their attention was diverted to training for the day they’d finally be allowed on their first mission. “Izzy had this obsession — whoever she had a crush on that month, she would play this game where she was the knight rescuing her prince from a tower where he was imprisoned.”

Magnus smiles. “Very forward-thinking.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes it got me thinking. If I had a, a guy, you know, a prince.” He imagined someone tall and strong, with broad shoulders and a spark in his eyes, a roguish grin and a sense of adventure. Informed by what, Alec couldn’t say. Fairytales and parables, some old book read under the covers at night, half a movie seen over someone’s shoulder in the common room once. All the things he wasn’t allowed to have rolled up into one person who walked into his life twenty years after the fact. “Well, he was a lot like you.”

Magnus’ expression aches. Alec thinks of Magnus’ mouth under his, the velvet of his lapels and the sweetness of his surprise. Alec might need to put a reminder on his calendar for today, _you really did kiss him_. 

So soft, Magnus says, “Alexander.”

“Well, you, but kind of a pirate?” Alec offers, straight-faced, but Magnus knows him enough to start laughing. “I don’t know, something about the earring —”

Teasingly, “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

Alec smiles and shifts forward, knees bending and bringing him close enough that he can touch the small cuff high up on Magnus’ ear. “Pretty good. Close enough.”

Their hands find each other. Magnus slides his fingers over Alec’s palm, thumb brushing the inside of his wrist. Alec cups the side of his head, Magnus’ hand caught under his, and they lean in at the same moment to share a light, deliberate kiss. After, Magnus rests his forehead against Alec’s temple for a moment. But then Alec shifts, places his knees on either side of Magnus’ thighs and lowers himself into his lap. It’s what Alec wants to do but he feels clumsy, like he has too much leg, like his body doesn’t know how this works. He angles his head down again for another kiss, tentative but with purpose.

The kiss at the wedding made a statement, but this makes a different one. It says, _show me_. This is Alec learning, in the private silence of the hallway, how to kiss Magnus the way he wants to be kissed. Getting to know the shape and feel of his mouth, the way he tilts his head and teases, how he pulls back just a little so Alec will chase him, then opens up and offers everything. A kiss so deep it’s depthless. 

For as slow and intentional as the kiss is, they’re both breathing hard when they finally break apart. One of Alec’s calves is going numb but Magnus has both arms around his waist, and that seems like an even trade. 

“I think there’s an encroaching disaster to be dealt with.” Magnus’ voice is satisfyingly low and rough, which gives Alec a little jolt of triumph. 

“I know, I know.” But Alec dips his head again for Magnus’ mouth. “Just give me a minute.” 

Magnus laughs for as long as he can before there are other things to do, until it’s a little ridiculous to be doing this in a hallway and not, say, in someone’s bed. Had Alec really put on a tux to get married this morning? His head is spinning. 

He sits back, Magnus’ thighs strong and tensed beneath him. “What do we do next?” 

“I believe I’ve got an ex-Shadowhunter to free from a cloud of coma-inducing green mist,” Magnus says. “And then there’s the matter of your parabatai.” 

“I meant a more specific we,” Alec says.

Amusement warms Magnus’ expression. “We’ve already decided on a date.” 

“I think this might be it.”

“Okay,” Magnus says, with a bright smile, one that reaches his eyes. “Then I suppose next we have a second one. And a third, and if all goes well —”

Alec cuts him off with a kiss. “No _if_ ,” he says.


End file.
